Summer’s bounty of delicious fruits offers cooks and bakers plenty of reasons to turn on their ovens during some of the hottest months of the year. As I visit my favorite grocery stores and farmers markets, my eyes marvel at the beautiful produce. I find my mind wandering to a few tried and true baked goods that are perfect snacking items to keep around the house.
I recently came across some beautiful, sweet blueberries and must admit went a little crazy on the purchase of 6 huge containers…ok it was actually 7…we ate one whole container on the way home.
My thinking was that they freeze beautifully and that I will have them on hand to toss them into just about anything…smoothies, cereal, baked goods, savory stuffings, salads…you name it. To freeze blueberries, put them in a single layer onto a lined sheet pan and allow them to freeze. Once they are frozen, put them into a Ziploc bag and refreeze. In commercial terms, this is called IQF (individually quick frozen). If you were to freeze the container the way you purchased it, you would have one big lump of berries all stuck together and a bit of a mess when it came time to use them.
I had some guests visiting today and wanted to share some of these baby blues, so I opted to make a blueberry coffee cake with an easy streusel topping. This cake is easy to put together and is based on my lamington pound cake recipe, but I did change a few things because of the addition of the blueberries.
I decreased the amount of milk to adjust for the moisture in the berries and then I added the streusel topping which you can make ahead of time and store it in a Ziploc bag in the freezer.
Blueberry Coffee Cake (use 9” x 13” cake pan)
12 oz soft butter
21 oz granulated sugar
7 teaspoons of vanilla
11 oz whole eggs
11 oz whole milk
16 oz all purpose flour
8 oz cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups frozen blueberries
Streusel Topping
2 sticks cold salted butter
2 cups flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
6 teaspoons cinnamon
½ cup ground pecans **optional
NOTE: Streusel topping can be added into cake batter to create a layer of caramel in the final product. If you would like to use the streusel topping in this way, reduce the amount of flour to 3/4 of a cup. You can still use this for a topping, but it will be less crispy after it bakes.
First make the streusel topping by putting all of the ingredients into a bowl and cutting the dry into the butter with your fingers until it resembles a coarse meal, then set this aside.
Add the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment until pale yellow. Slowly add the eggs and vanilla and continue to cream this mixture until fluffy. Scale out the dry ingredients and measure out the milk. Sift all the dry ingredients together and begin adding the flour (in 3 additions) and then the milk (in 2 additions) until it is all incorporated and you have a smooth batter. Lastly fold in your frozen blueberries and pour into a well greased 12″ x 17″ or 14″ square cake pan if that is easier to find. Top generously with the streusel and bake at 350°F for about 30-40 minutes until it is golden brown all over and cake tests clean. This freezes beautifully, so make extra!
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